|
on Public Finance |
|
Issue of 2020‒02‒03
eight papers chosen by |
| By: | Eichfelder, Sebastian; Jacob, Martin; Schneider, Kerstin |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effect of tax incentives in the form of bonus depreciation on the quality of investment. Using the expiration of tax incentives via bonus depreciation in East Germany and a representative panel of West German establishments, we show that bonus depreciation significantly lowers the quality of investment. The average quality of investments, measured by the responsiveness of future sales to current investment, reduces by 22.6-34.6%. This adverse effect of tax subsidies is greater for jurisdictions with higher tax rates as well as for large or high-productivity firms. Overall, while increasing investment quantity, as shown by prior literature, tax incentives such as bonus depreciation substantially reduce the quality of investments. |
| Keywords: | bonus depreciation,tax incentive,investment incentive,investment quality |
| JEL: | G11 H25 H32 M41 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:arqudp:248&r=all |
| By: | Samara Gunter; Daniel Riera-Crichton; Carlos Vegh; Guillermo Vuletin |
| Abstract: | We estimate the effect of worldwide tax changes on output following the narrative approach developed for the United States by Romer and Romer (2010). We use a novel dataset on value-added taxes for 51 countries (21 industrial and 30 developing) for the period 1970-2014 to identify 96 tax changes. We then use contemporaneous economic records to classify such changes as endogenous or exogenous to current (or prospective) economic conditions. In line with theoretical distortionary and disincentive-based arguments — and using exogenous tax changes — we find that the effect of tax changes on output is highly non-linear. The tax multiplier is essentially zero under relatively low initial tax rate levels and more negative as the initial tax rate increases. Based on a global sample, these novel non-linear findings suggest that the recent consensus pointing to large negative tax multipliers in industrial countries, particularly in industrial Europe (e.g., Alesina, Favero, and Giavazzi, 2015), (i) is not a robust empirical regularity, and (ii) is based on results mainly driven by high initial tax rates in these countries. We also show that the bias introduced by misidentification of tax shocks critically depends on the procyclical or countercyclical nature of endogenous tax changes. |
| JEL: | E32 E62 |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26570&r=all |
| By: | Davide Debortoli; Ricardo Nunes; Pierre Yared |
| Abstract: | According to the Lucas-Stokey result, a government can structure its debt maturity to guarantee commitment to optimal fiscal policy by future governments. In this paper, we overturn this conclusion, showing that it does not generally hold in the same model and under the same definition of time-consistency as in Lucas-Stokey. Our argument rests on the existence of an overlooked commitment problem that cannot be remedied with debt maturity: a government in the future will not tax on the downward sloping side of the La er curve, even if it is ex-ante optimal to do so. |
| Keywords: | public debt, optimal taxation, fiscal policy |
| JEL: | H63 H21 E62 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1144&r=all |
| By: | Youssef Benzarti; Jarkko Harju |
| Abstract: | This paper uses quasi-experimental variation in payroll taxes to estimate their incidence and investigate how firms use their input factors. We find that higher payroll tax rates lead to large employment responses and have no effects on employee earnings. As payroll taxes increase, firms substitute away from low-skilled, routine and manual workers towards more productive workers and also reduce investments. Our results imply that, contrary to the canonical tax incidence model, firm-level production and input factor choices are affected by payroll taxes. |
| JEL: | H20 H22 H23 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26640&r=all |
| By: | Blaufus, Kay; Schöndube, Jens Robert; Wielenberg, Stefan |
| Abstract: | We examine whether tax audit regimes become more efficient if (i) there are audited financial statements and (ii) tax auditors have access to the internal statutory audit report revealing information about statutory audit adjustments. Our analysis is based on a standard tax compliance game that we extend to model the strategic interaction among a firm issuing financial and tax reports, a statutory auditor, and a tax auditor. We find that the efficiency effects of additional information depend on the strength of tax auditor incentives and the weight that firms place on book income. For high-powered tax auditor incentives, we obtain no information effect on our efficiency measures. For low-powered tax auditor incentives, we find an ambiguous effect, and for mediumpowered tax auditor incentives and firms that place a high weight on book income, tax audit efficiency increases if the tax auditor has access to additional information. In the latter case, we find that granting the tax auditor access to the internal statutory audit report increases firms' tax compliance, raises tax revenues, and decreases tax audit frequency. |
| Keywords: | Tax compliance game,Tax audit,Statutory audit,Tax audit efficiency,Strategic auditing |
| JEL: | H26 M41 M42 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:arqudp:249&r=all |
| By: | Clemens Fuest; Florian Neumeier; Daniel Stöhlker |
| Abstract: | The ‘starving the beast’ hypothesis claims that tax cuts lead to lower public spending, rather than higher debt levels and higher taxes in the future. This paper uses the institutional setting of German fiscal federalism to its advantage in order to explore how fiscal policy reacts to exogenous tax revenue shocks. We use panel data from the German states covering the period from 1992 to 2011, and assess to what extent exogenous changes in tax revenues affect aggregate public expenditure as well as specific sub-categories of government spending. Applying the narrative approach pioneered by Romer and Romer (2009), we construct a measure of exogenous tax shocks. This allows us to identify the causal effect of tax changes on fiscal policy. Our results suggest that an exogenous decrease in tax revenues triggers a reduction in public spending of roughly the same amount, with a delay of two to three years. We find that a revenue decline of one Euro reduces public spending on administration and, with a larger delay, social security, by 30 to 45 cents in each case. Spending on infrastructure declines by ten cents. We find no significant effects on spending on education, legal protection and public safety, or culture. |
| Keywords: | taxation, fiscal policy, tax-spend, public expenditure, narrative approach |
| JEL: | E62 H11 H20 H62 H72 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8009&r=all |
| By: | Divya Singh |
| Abstract: | Recently, many cities have proposed property tax incentives on new construction to counteract rising rents. However, to date, there is little empirical evidence on their local effects. This paper uses a natural experiment in New York City to estimate the local effects of new tax-exempt residential construction. In 2006, the city government decided to make property tax incentives on new construction less generous, but only starting in 2008. Developers rushed to build and claim incentives before the deadline in response. I instrument the number of new units developed within 150 meters from a rental building by the baseline number of vacant parcels available within the same distance. Using a new dataset of rents and investment at the level of a building, I find that the existing rental buildingâs rent increased by 2.3% in response to an additional tax-exempt unit built within a 150 meters radius. I provide evidence consistent with the hypothesis that new residential investment rendered neighborhoods more desirable by attracting affluent households and facilitating the entry of businesses and consumption amenities. Overall, the results indicate that tax-exempt new construction spurred gentrification. |
| JEL: | R31 H23 H71 H30 |
| Date: | 2020–01–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jmp:jm2020:psi856&r=all |
| By: | Michael Christl (European Commission - JRC); Silvia De Poli (European Commission - JRC); Janos Vargas (European Commission – DG ECFIN) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the impact of the implementation of a child tax credit in Austria in 2019, not only on micro, but also on macro level by using a dynamic scoring methodology. First, we assess the fiscal and distributional impact of this reform using the microsimulation model EUROMOD. Second, we estimate labour supply impacts of the reform based on a structural discrete choice framework. Third, we evaluate the macroeconomic impacts of the reform, by calibrating and shocking QUEST, the DSGE model of the European Commission, with the micro-based results for the implicit tax rate, the non-participation and the labour supply elasticities. We show that the child tax credit reform in Austria reduces inequality, lowers the poverty rate in general, but by definition only for households with children. Overall the reform has a positive impact on labour supply, both on the extensive and on the intensive margin, especially for women. On the macro-level (and in the long-run), our model suggests a positive impact on employment. Additionally, we find that parts of the tax decrease can be potentially captured by the employer, meaning that gross wages would fall slightly. However, we find small but positive effects on GDP, investment and consumption, although the long-run macroeconomic effects depend crucially on how the government compensates the missing tax revenues after the reform. Accounting for these effects at the micro level, we show that the second round effects are important to take into account, because they provide insights into the medium-term distributional impact of the reform. |
| Keywords: | EUROMOD, tax credit, reform, DSGE, labour supply, microsimulation, discrete choice |
| JEL: | H24 H31 I38 |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:taxref:201909&r=all |